Opening arms to immigrants has hurt Marshalltown

April 22, 2014

The facts are clear ... in the past 20 years, our wages and property values have decreased markedly, while crime rates and signs uptown that no one can read unless you speak Spanish have increased. MMSC is forced to write off more and more medical care because many of the Hispanic patients won't give their real names, which forces prices up for everyone ... except of course for the "poor Hispanic." In conjunction with this, we are told by the local diocese and certain city officials that if we find the above facts offensive, that we are somehow anti-immigrant.

Let's not confuse being a responsible citizen with legitimate and immediately relevant concerns with ethnocentric tendencies. It is the tool of those who support the Hispanic invasion to cast those that oppose as racist. Fortunately, I don't care. I prefer to pose my arguments based in fact and logic, not emotion or somebodies idea of forced assimilation.

I don't want Marshalltown to be a sanctuary city anymore ... where is ICE, where is the outrage about the invasion of "undocumented," the crime rates, the wages the property values? To what degree is JBS and the local diocese responsible for what has happened here?

Should we shrug our collective shoulders, or demand better? Is it too much to ask that our new visitors assimilate, be here legally and respect those that have allowed them to be a part of our community?